Sports Desk:

Bangladesh U-23 football team’s main objective in their behind-closed-doors friendly against Bahrain was to sharpen themselves as much as possible ahead of the Asian challenge.

With that in mind, head coach Saiful Bari Titu fielded almost his entire squad in Monday’s first preparation match against the hosts.

The match ended in a 1-0 defeat for Bangladesh, but in a preparatory fixture the focus is less on the result and more on what the players can take away from the experience.

After the game, forward Mirazul Islam and assistant coach Hasan Al Mamun shared their reactions, though the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) did not officially mention the final score in its press release.

In video messages released by BFF, both expressed satisfaction with the team’s efforts and voiced hope that the next match on 22 August would bring further improvement.

Mirazul said: “About the team’s performance… Alhamdulillah, everyone played and played well. We made some mistakes, but we will correct them before the next match. The coach told us that we played a very good preparation match.”

“The preparation tournament in Vietnam will be good. We have a target there, and to achieve it we will go with strong preparation from here,” he added.

For the coaching staff, this first fixture was also an opportunity to assess the players.

Assistant coach Hasan Al Mamun explained: “We played the first match here in Bahrain, and it was important to see the entire team. That is why we gave all of them a chance to play. Overall, it was a good preparation match. Even as a warm-up, the boys gave their best.”